First Vertex

On some rides I notice the first vertex is somewhere in the middle of the track. What would be the point of building a ride from the middle instead of the beginning? Seems to add undue complication. Thanks for any explanations.

I also noticed that many of the first vertices are dragged away from the center of the map. Is this to save room?

[Kev]

The 'first vertex' is adjustable. Just because it is marked as first doesn't mean that is where the builder started.



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I have often started rides with the beginning of the drop ... and then marked the first segment in the final brake somewhere. There is no real reason for it - I might just get inspired to do a drop and not really be sure about how I want to get there.

Thanks for the instant replies. Thanks for the image Kev. I didn't know about that "Shift+F" hotkey. TConwell, I guess you have a knack for this if you can kind of work backwards like that. At least it seems somewhat backwards to me [:p]

It kind of is backwards, but that depends on how you look at it. I mean, if I know I started at a lift or MCBR, all I have to do is work to get to that point. It takes a few extra minutes of course to make sure everything lines up (and connects properly), but sometimes starting at the station just does not work for me ... not always of course, just sometimes.

For me, I always make the first vertex the rear of the station. It's just how I start.

[gouldy]

I sometimes start by building the first inversion or element and then carry on with the rest of the ride and finish up by building the lift and the drop, that way I think you can get a better layout ... Well that seems to work for me anyway. But usually I would just start with the back of the station like most people would. I do have a lot of trackfiles that are just one element, or one inversion, they're all new elements that I've invented and sometimes I'll just pick one of them and build a track around that element, whether it be the first element after the drop or the last element. I think it adds a bit of a different challenge to it, plus it can be quite fun building backwards aswell.

[Dirk_Ermen]

i'd always start with the lift of launch as first. And of cource a nice station so i'd can test the ride when building. Correct lift speed, correct g's. Or even problems that it won't continue the track because of hight vs speed problems. So i can adjust it. Before continue'ing with the next element

There are good reasons to set the first vertex to different points:
1) If you go into external view, the camera is positioned near the first vertex. This comes in handy when you are building supports and have to check for tunnelhits. place the first vertex near where you are currently building the supports and you don't need to fly there to check for collisions.
2) again because of the external camera it can be nice to place the first vertex at an interesting spot of the ride, so other users will get that view first when they go into external view.
3) when you want to insert elements in the middle of the ride you need to change the first vertex to disconnect the track at any given point.
4) There's situations where the first vertex SHOULDN'T be at a random spot: Double station layout. In that case (unload/load) the first vertex should be between the two stations to ensure the correct placement of the trains. If the first vertex is somehwere else, the first train will be in the unload station, which ain't nice for the user as he allways has to switch to the second train in order to directly ride the coaster and not just move into the loading station.

Buster.

Wow...thanks for filling me in guys. That's one less thing for me to wonder about. Purgatorium might be the next thing I look into, but it looks a lot more complicated than the NL Editor itself. I might be better off taking an advanced Calculus course first [|)]